Targeted applications are software applications that include hard-coded configuration information related to a hardware device executing the software. Because the software was written with a specific hardware device in mind, only the hardware device for which the software was written may execute the software. Targetless applications, on the other hand, are hardware independent because the configuration information is not hard-coded into the source code. This means that targetless applications can receive configuration information directly from the hardware device running the software. Thus, many different computing devices may execute targetless applications without substantial revisions to the source code.
To convert a software application from a targeted application to a targetless application, a programmer must manually remove all references in the targeted application to configuration information, and replace all the references with computer code that receives the configuration information from the external source. This is a very time consuming process, especially if the source code has millions of lines of code. Accordingly, a converter is needed that can convert targeted applications to targetless applications.